GOD’S OFFICES (Les Bureaux de Dieu) Official Selection: Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (2009), Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (2008), Montreal International Festival of New Cinema (2008), São Paulo International Film Festival (2008) SACD Prize at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight (2008) West Coast Premiere Drama/Comedy France/Belgium, 2008 In French with English subtitles 35mm/Scope/Color/Dolby SRD/122 min Directed by: Claire Simon Written by: Claire Simon, Natalia Rodriguez, Nadège Trebal Cinematography by: Philippe Van Leeuw, Claire Simon Editing by: Julien Lacheray Original Music by: Arthur Simon Produced by: Richard Copans, Philippe Carcassonne Production Company: Ciné-@, Les Films d’ici Co-produced by: La Parti Production International sales: FILMS BOUTIQUE Skalitzer str 54 10997 Berlin, Germany Tel: + 49 30 8411 0859 www.filmsboutique.com With: Nathalie Baye (Anne), Michel Boujenah (Dr. Lambert), Isabelle Carré (Marta), Béatrice Dalle (Milena), Nicole Garcia (Denise), Anne Alvaro (Dr. Marianne), Rachida Brakni (Yasmine), Lolita Chammah (Emmanuelle), Marie Laforêt (Martine), Marceline Loridan-Ivens (Marceline), Emmanuel Mouret (Pierre) www.lesbureauxdedieu-lefilm.com Moved by what she experienced in a family planning center, Claire Simon crafted God’s Offices using extensive material from a series of interviews and sessions that she did at the center over the course of seven years. Through various encounters among the women who come for help and their counselors, the film points to the essential role played by these centers and the complexity of the issues at stake. Combining non-professional actresses with an all-star cast including Nathalie Baye (Day For Night, The Green Room) Béatrice Dalle (Betty Blue, I Can’t Sleep) and Nicole Garcia (Peril, Mon Oncle d’Amérique), God’s Offices pays homage to the courage, dedication and empathy of these women. ABOUT CLAIRE SIMON After a first career as a film editor, Claire Simon trained at the Ateliers Varan and quickly found a strong affinity for “direct cinema,” crafting a body of work that blurs the divide between fiction and non-fiction. Following her award-winning documentary Coûte que coûte (1996), she wrote and directed her first feature, A Foreign Body (1997), presented at Cannes during Cinémas en France, which won the SACD Grand Prize for Best Screenplay at the Journées Franco-Américaines d’Avignon. After a series of critically-acclaimed documentaries, including Recreation (1998), That’s Just Like You (2000) and Mimi (2003), she returned to narrative features with On Fire (COL•COA 2007), also presented during the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. God’s Offices is her third feature film. PRESS “A film of masterful intensity, where documentary and fiction reenactment combine their forces. (…) An essential film.” (L’Humanité) “The director adopts a near-documentary style by centering the action within poignant counseling sessions. Featuring a cast of veteran French actresses (Nathalie Baye, Nicole Garcia, Isabelle Carré, and Béatrice Dalle) as the advisors and nonprofessional actors as the clients, God’s Offices sensitively portrays the complexities of women’s sexual and reproductive rights.” (Metromix) “The truth of the encounters between these two worlds gives the feature film GOD’S OFFICES all its strength, all its intelligence and ability to question topics as difficult as: choice, freedom and taboos that are at the core of our western society.” (Cinopsis)